


we sat on the edge of worlds

by stelian



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Gen, Homesickness, Hunk has GAD, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing Body Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9252185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelian/pseuds/stelian
Summary: As far as rescue missions went, this wasn’t the worst one ever. No one was near death, none of the lions were severely damaged, they were still together, and both were in one piece. Mostly. So what if some weird electromagnetic storm was keeping them from contacting the Castle, a wave sent out by a Galra commander had deactivated Shiro's arm, and Hunk may or may not have more than a slight concussion? At least no one was dying.The hardest part was trying to survive through the night while the temperatures continued to drop.{or; Hunk and Shiro have a bonding moment while trying not to freeze to death}





	

As far as rescue missions went, this wasn’t the _worst_ one ever. No one was near death, none of the lions were severely damaged, they were still together, and both were in one piece. Mostly.

_(“Well, you’re in one piece, but I guess I’m more like… in six sevenths pieces?” Shiro said with a grin and a shrug on the left side only; his right shoulder had kind of popped a little bit out of place from the dead weight dragging it down. Which. Was not anywhere near as funny as he seemed to think it was. Definitely not appreciated. No thanks.)_

Of course, there was the weird electromagnetic storm keeping them from contacting the castle and the fuzzy, bluish precipitation that made long-distance sight almost impossible. Plus there had been the one little Galra fleet stationed nearby, but they were easy enough to take out except for the commander, who had sent out this wave that had completely disabled Shiro’s arm. And Yellow had crashed, just a little bit. And Hunk may or may not have a little concussion from said crash. And the distress beacon the two of them had been responding to was just some sort of phony signal the castle had made up. Stupid, ancient, malfunctioning technology.

But still. Not the worst. Far from the worst.

Hunk stood up from the ground slowly, trying to keep the spinning in his head from overwhelming him. The kickback from his bayard had pushed him back a little more than expected when he’d taken out the last couple of Galra, and then his head had spun and- okay. Maybe he was more than a little concussed.

“Allura? Can you hear us?” he said into his helmet, for at least the third time. There was no response, but then he heard static. That was better than the complete silence they’d been getting.

“Atmosphere… can’t.... Overnight… be there…?”

He’d never been so happy to hear her voice before. Even if it was little phrases of clarity within the static and whirring in the background, it was something. Something was always better than nothing, right? Of course right.

Coughing, Hunk tried to stumble towards where the Black Lion sat. The last time he’d looked, he’d seen a black blur fighting over close to its lion, which meant Shiro was probably over there somewhere. Probably? His head was a little fuzzy, but he could last through it. If Lance could shoot a moving target while kind of dying, he could walk a couple meters with a little concussion. Again, not the worst injury received on these sort of missions.

By the time he made it, his legs felt like jelly and the area was conspicuously absent of black paladins. _Go look_ , the rational part of his brain said. _You can’t survive alone, and he might be worse off than you._ He was nearly inclined to listen, but then a stabbing pain shot through his head and, screw rationality, he’d probably fall over if he walked out there anyway. So Hunk sat down on one of the massive paws and put his head between his knees to try to keep the world from spinning so much. It worked. Kind of. At least it felt a bit like his motion sickness, even though he wasn’t moving except for the fact that he was currently sitting on a planet that was hurtling around a pair of suns which, really, was _fascinating,_ he’d always thought binary systems were interesting and here he was, sitting on a planet in one of them, and he was staring at the vaguely fluffy blueish ground instead of the stars-

“Buddy, are you okay?”

Oh, right. He looked up and, _whoa_ , there went the spinning again. Reminder not to move his head. Good to know.

“Uh, yeah, kind of? Except the planet’s kind of spinning, and I know all planets are spinning unless they’re violating the laws of physics, but _man_ this place is really going.¨ He paused. “I guess I might be a little concussed.”

“That’s a good guess.” Shiro’s voice sounded funny. Maybe it’s the slight ringing in his ears that hasn’t really gone away since he crashed. Maybe it was something else. Or maybe his brain just really wasn’t working. Maybe it was all of them. “I guess we’re going to be here a while. Can you stand so we can get inside Black? I’m guessing this place isn’t exactly pleasant at night.”

From what Hunk could see of the skyline that _was_ now starting to stabilize, the suns were starting to lower. Based on how cold it already was, he couldn’t imagine what the night would bring. “Uh, yeah. I think so. Everything’s slowing a bit.” That wasn’t a lie. “But I might need some help getting up so I don’t just immediately fall over.” That was a lie. He probably needed more than a little stability.

“That’s good.” Shiro didn’t say anything for a minute. Hunk saw the shoulder that hung just a bit lower roll a bit, and then he added, “I don’t know how much I can help you. I mean, I can try, but…”

 _But I only have one and a half arms right now and you’re kind of heavy,_ was the unfinished end to that sentence. “You’re good. I just need a bit.”

So Shiro wrapped his good arm around Hunk and, slowly, brought the both of them up. He was prepared for the sudden altitude shift, but he was _not_ prepared for the rush that came over his head, how the black spots crowded in and the ringing in his ears became sharp and high-pitched. His legs almost gave out, but he reached out and rested his other arm on Black’s leg, and the stability must have helped because the spots cleared soon.

“Whoa, okay. Not cool. But I’m good now.”

“You sure?”

Shiro was kind of stooped under Hunk’s arm in a position that mustn’t have been good for his back, but the moment he started to shrug his arm away he got the Dad Look and that was the end of that. “Let’s just get inside.”

“I agree.”

For all the issue that the planet’s atmosphere gave them, it must have been incredibly thin because the temperature dropped _fast._ It seemed that one minute it was chilly but relatively comfortable; the next, cold as balls. Maybe it was just because they’d both grown up in warm climates, but still.

Of course, it would help if the Lions were actually warm. Apparently, Earth was one of the warmer inhabited planets out there, which Hunk had found incredible. At most, he’d expected it to be near the middle of the spectrum, but that was probably just a holdover from how most humans thought themselves the center of the universe. Altea was one of the colder planets out there, and it was obvious from the average temperatures of the castle and the lions. At least it was possible to adjust room temperatures in the castle. The insulated flight suits were enough to keep the lions from being unbearably cold in normal circumstances, but it was quite a bit colder than normal.

They’d started out sitting against the control panel, legs cramped up awkwardly against the chair. Even though Black was by far the largest lion, the cockpit really wasn’t all that much bigger than Yellow, at least as far as Hunk could tell. By the time his eyelids started to get heavy, it was far too cold to actually sleep comfortably.

It was also at that point that he realized that, beside him, Shiro was shivering heavily, good arm wrapped awkwardly around his chest. He was about to make a joke about his low tolerance to cold before he remembered the metal arm that hung useless at his side, and he thought.

No matter how fancy and high-tech that arm was, it was still metal. Despite growing up on a warm, Pacific island that rarely dipped below 18 °C, he knew that metal conducts heat well enough that being physically attached to a large chunk of metal in freezing temperatures was a great way to quickly sap your heat.

“Shit, why didn’t you say how cold you were?” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound too angry.

“It’s fine,” Shiro muttered, which was so much of a lie that Hunk almost wanted to slap him. Almost.

“Okay, no, you don’t get to say that. Not today.” Because, really, he was fed up with it. Maybe it was concussion or how tired he was, but he wouldn’t take the murmured excuses and half-truths his leader tended to spout. “It’s just you and me. We’re not going to lie to each other. Promise?” Shiro opened his mouth to protest, but Hunk shot back his trademark Mom Look.

“Fine, promise.”

Good.

Okay, first step. Do something about that arm. How could he keep him warm?

Warm.

Blanket.

Blanket?

Space blanket!

 _All right! Space blankets in space!_ Lance had said when they’d been handed out as part of the “emergency kit” that was in all of the lions, tucked away somewhere where it wouldn’t be in the way.

He stood up- slowly again, trying to keep that scary rush from happening again-, gripped the chair for a moment, and then took a few steps to the little compartment where the kits were kept. He fought his trembling legs each step but- aha. There it was. Space space blanket, secured.

He returned to where Shiro had curled in on himself more, naturally trying to preserve the heat that was being leached out of the prosthesis. “Hey, I’m gonna wrap this around your arm. Is that okay?” Hunk said in a soft voice. Sometimes, Shiro had issues with contact when he didn’t initiate it. They were having a rough enough day that Hunk really didn’t want to make it worse for the both of them.

“You’re good.”

He wrapped the thing around the entire arm, looping it several times and then tying it off to stay in place. “Okay, that should preserve some heat.” Good, task one accomplished. What next? “So, step two. It’s too cold in here to stay how we are. So... “

“So we share body heat.”

He’d read his mind again. It was scary how that happened sometimes.

“Only if you’re down with that,” Hunk responded, adding an eyebrow wiggle just like Lance had taught him.

Shiro, again, shrugged, except the creaking sound his right shoulder made was super disgusting so he kind of stopped midway through. “Like you said, it’s too cold not to.”

“Well, you’re in luck, because I am an _excellent_ cuddler.”

They ended up both on their sides, curled up just the slightest bit and with arms overcrossing. Really, there was no personal space between them. The wrapped arm was practically digging into Hunk’s stomach, and his knees overlapped Shiro’s. It was far from comfortable. But. _But_. It was warm. And a lot of the vague panic that Hunk tended to feel pushed away a bit, for whatever reason. He felt safe.

There was silence for awhile, the only noise the sound of their breathing. Then, Hunk, who was back to being nearly half-asleep, heard a breath cleaved in half and the slightest increase in the rate of Shiro’s breathing. He opened his eyes wider and saw how he seemed just a bit far away, just a bit out of touch. “Hey, are you here?” he said, purposefully making his voice as soft as possible.

“Yeah- yeah.” A pause, and then he must have remembered the promise from earlier, because Shiro added, “It’s just… it was always cold. On the ship. You know, they all have fur. And I guess this is kind of similar. Except you’re here.”

Gently, Hunk traced his fingers on the flesh arm, just for the tactility. “Is there anything I can do?”

A moment went by, then another. For a second, Hunk thought that Shiro had really been lost this time, that he was stuck somewhere in the past that he couldn’t bring him back from. And then he heard a deep breath, slower than the ones that he’d been taking, and he said, “Could you talk?”

“Of course. You know I’m good at that.”

So Hunk… talked. He told him about sunny mornings, about how he hated wearing shoes unless it was absolutely necessary. He talked about the time he’d gone on a fishing trip with his uncle just to be on the open ocean. He’d sat, amazed, at the open water surrounding him, and how bright and brilliant the stars shone when it was just you and the water. Even though he’d spent most of the time on the boat violently ill from the rocking movements, he’d felt so _small_ surrounded by the sea.

And then he shifted to the nights at the Garrison where his breath would come too fast and he wouldn’t be able to think past what he _knew_ his classmates said about him. _Not true, not true,_ Lance had said, always calm and breathing deeply. Lance had been his rock. He talked about how, no matter stressful class was or difficult life felt, Lance was always calm and steady and knew exactly what to say to calm the both of them.

When he was out of stories that swam to the forefront of his mind, Hunk started to sing. He’d always been a good singer, even if the thought of singing for anyone tended to bring with it intense anxiety. He started with a few folk songs, and then shifted over to one that was in Japanese because he knew that would be appreciated.

He paused, then, his voice running low. Shiro wasn’t asleep, but he seemed close; certainly closer than Hunk had ever seen him. He liked to think the fuzzy blue stuff from earlier was snow. They were just huddled together on a cold winter’s day back on Earth, telling stories to pass the time.

“We shouldn’t be here,” he said, and Shiro seemed to stir at that.

“You’re right. You’re all too young for this. You… children shouldn’t have to be soldiers like this. I’m sorry I dragged you all into this.”

Oh, god. It was a good thing he was too exhausted to process what he’d just said because _man_ that would happen later. “Okay, that was so wrong I’m not even going to touch it. None of _us_ \- which includes you, it includes Allura and Coran and whoever else is out there fighting with us- should be here. None of us. Lance should be with his siblings- did you know his big sister just had a baby? He’d only met him once when this all started. It was almost winter break, you know? He was so excited to go home and visit her, and the rest of them, and have this big Christmas dinner with too much food despite the huge group they were feeding. And- and Pidge should be at home, messing with her older brother and teasing him about dumb things, with her dad calling her mom ‘sweet pea’ all the time to make them all blush, and tinkering with robots because it’s fun, not because she has to.

“Plus Keith! I mean, he should be a star pilot. He should be _famous_ , and loved, and with a caring family and surrounded by people who mean the world to him, and he should know that, you know? Allura should be doing whatever alien princesses do, dancing at balls and flirting with noble girls from other planets, leading her people as queen because we all know she’d be great at it. Did you know Coran had a daughter, before? He should be with her, be her crazy dad who says weird things and is goofy sometimes but she loves him, and he loves her, and they laugh and have fun as he watches her grow older.”

There may or may not have been tears in his eyes at that point.

“I mean, I want to go home too, I guess? I want water everywhere, making fun of tourists that look ridiculous and think they fit in so well. I want to see my little sister- she’s probably grown so much! I probably wouldn’t even recognize her. And you-”

He saw the way Shiro hunched, ducking his head. “Okay, ideally, you should be known as that super young pilot who flew his crew to Kerberos and back, who collected important ice samples that let us know about the expanding universe, but at the very least you should be home. Getting therapy. Laying low. Not having to go out and fight every day. Maybe they’d get you a dog. Like one of those ones that are trained for PTSD? Yeah. Like that. You could name it Black and everything. It’d be just like where we are now. But better.”

In that moment, all of the thoughts that had been swimming in his head for weeks, months, however long they’d been in space conjugated somewhere he _couldn’t_ ignore them. Normally, he was good at pushing the homesickness to somewhere where it was quiet and he could block it out. But now, huddled against his leader in a (failing) attempt to avoid hypothermia, it flooded him.

Because as cool as it was to be constantly in space, piloting some super cool space cat ship thing, saving people, he hadn’t signed up for it. No one had signed up for this fight. And part of him was tempted to just leave, to go home and see his moms and his little sister, to ignore the enslaved planets millions of light years away.

“I want to go home,” he said, his voice soft.

“I do too,” Shiro said, and his voice was small and young, and _god_ if that didn’t hurt. “This shouldn’t be our responsibility. But we’re here, and we can’t give up when we’ve made so much progress already.”

But ‘so much progress’ meant only a handful of planets liberated from a massive, intra-galactic empire. Still, though. If it meant just a few less people living under the Galra, well… He hadn’t understood until he’d stood in the caves of the Balmera, until he met a girl who had never seen the sky and ‘freedom’ was a concept only in her dreams. And Hunk understood.

“Do you think we’ll ever be able to take them down? The Galra, I mean?”

There was a pause, a heartbreaking moment where he was sure the answer would be ‘No, of course not; we’re seven against a whole empire’, but then Shiro said, “I think we have a chance.” Another slight pause, and then, “If nothing else, I want to personally take down Haggar.”

Hunk thought back to the metal arm that was currently leaching precious warmth from its unwilling host, and he understood. Because, of course, right with him was someone who had personally seen what they did to innocents, who had lost a year of his life as well as his mental well-being to the Galra. Of course it would be personal, and of course he’d be driven. Admitting such was bringing to light the ferocity that was only there in hints; the slightest hesitation during training or the way he’d sometimes rip through sentries as if they were nothing.

“I think we can arrange for that,” Hunk said, trying to bring a smile to his face. Focusing on the conversation was starting to get difficult. Even though he was laying down, the dizziness from earlier had begun to return and the cockpit was sickeningly lurching. That, and he felt absolutely exhausted.

Shiro must have noticed because he said, “I’m sorry, I’m probably keeping you awake?”

Hunk let out the yawn he was holding in and, yeah, it was weird to feel the room spinning while you were on the ground. “No, you’re good. I’d never forgive myself if I’d let you slip away. Plus, this is nothing like some of the all-nighters I pulled at the Garrison, except then I was taking shower breaks every half hour to keep from overheating.” _I miss that_ , he wanted to add, but nope. Not going there.

“Thank you, I really do appreciate it. But you need to sleep now. I think I should be good.” Hunk cocked his eyebrow. “I’m not lying, I promise.”

He was still a little suspicious, but the heaviness of his eyelids beat out and he quickly fell into a shallow sleep.

* * *

 

“Hunk, you really need to wake up now. Come on. This is ridiculous. I can’t carry you. Get up, you big idiot.”

His neck hurt. His arm was asleep. His shoulders burned. The light hurt when he opened his eyes. Everything hurt.

Where was he? He must have slept on the ground. Maybe his family was visiting and he took the floor to make room. Or was he at the Garrison? Did he fall out of bed during a nightmare? Oh, Lance would probably make fun of him.

“Allura, can you come down here? I think it got colder than we thought it would overnight. No, they’re fine, just a little out of it. Shiro thought I was Matt again, and Hunk won’t even really look at me. It’s a little rough in here.”

Allura and Shiro. Those were some weird names.

But why did they sound familiar?

“Hunk, do you know where you are?”

Why was the little green mouse talking to him? Wait, it wasn’t that little. Or all that mousey. But kind of?

“Not really.”

He felt the weight by his chest shudder and whisper, “Matt? What happened to you?”

He wondered what that was about. He didn’t know a Matt.

There was more light, and four figures walked in. One was Lance, one looked cranky, one was a slightly orange blur behind them, and the other was a _very_ pretty girl. _Friends_ , something in his mind said.

Huh.

He’d made some attractive friends, that was for sure.

And then he fell back to sleep. 

* * *

 

The Alteans, it turned out, had a very intricate system of rewarming set up. Hunk supposed it made sense. Altea was a fairly cold planet, after all, and their whole process of healing kind of depended on freezing a person alive. If that were to go wrong, well… it was probably a good idea to have a backup system.

So, it only took a few hours in whatever nifty rewarming machine they had, followed by a short stay in a cryopod to fix up the concussion, for Hunk to feel warm and normal again. Of course, he turned up the temperature of every room he went into, because he was _done_ with cold. He’d had enough. Done. No more.

“Hey,” Pidge said when he stumbled out of the pod. “How you feeling?” The dark smudges under her eyes said that she’d probably not slept since they’d lost contact a day- technically two days?- ago, but that wasn’t really unusual for Pidge.

“I’ve been better. But not bad.”

“Good. That’s great.” She glanced back down at the pad she had been looking at. Hunk tried to look over her shoulder at it, but he couldn’t make anything out except some very technical looking figures. “So, I just sent him off to sleep, but we’ll have to do it eventually.”

“Um, do what?”

“Shit.” She smacked her forehead with the pad. “Shiro’s arm is still deactivated. I was going to take a look at it, but. I probably need your help.” She pushed her glasses up, which the universal Pidge code for ‘there’s something I need to say but I really don’t want to say it’. “Plus he wanted you there.”

“Really, me? I mean, I don’t how much help I’d be because I kind of have big fingers and plus you’re way better with this tech stuff, but I guess?”

“That wasn’t a question, but okay. I was going to force you whether you wanted to or not.”

“Oh, good. Glad I had a choice there.”

She grinned then, finally, and then punched him in the arm. “Shut up. I knew you wouldn’t say no.” As he pretended to rub the spot in pain, she added, “I’m also supposed to tell you to go to sleep. We’ll start working whenever you guys are both awake.”

 

Fixing the arm actually turned out to be very simple. The hardest part was looking inside and realizing that some of the strange, discolored parts were actually bits of bones and nerves, and Hunk may or may not have puked a little bit at that revelation. But the actual fix was just figuring out how to metaphorically “reboot” the thing, and then closing it up within a span of only a little less than an hour. What was more concerning was the fact that it was clearly widespread knowledge that the “Champion” ( _god, he hated to think about that title_ ) was one of the Voltron paladins, and he fought with his Galra arm; thus, it was important to have a way to quickly neutralize him. They’d worry about that later.

Actually, scratch that. The hardest part was splitting his attention between the piece of technology in front of him and the actual, living human attached to it who probably had some issues with people poking around in his arm. It hadn’t taken long for Shiro to start to slip away in the beginning, which was evidenced by his stiff posture and slightly ragged breathing. But then Hunk started talking, bantering with Pidge and telling more stories, and then eventually lapsing into singing again, and he could feel him relax.

“All right, all done. How’s it feel?” Hunk asked as he sealed up the casing. Shiro flexed his fingers, and he was glad to see that everything seemed to be working fine. It was good to know he hadn’t caused him the loss of another limb.

To his surprise, instead of immediately answering the question, Shiro wrapped the metal arm around his neck in a- in _hug_ , he supposed, which was strange because he really wasn’t a touchy person, especially when it came to that arm. “Much better. Thank you so much.”

When he pulled back, Hunk asked, “Um, I’m not unappreciative, but what was that for?”

“For keeping me grounded back on that planet and right now, and for just being _you_.” There was a very dad-like look of pride on his face as he said, “I don’t think you always realize how great you are. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

When he left, Pidge pulled her gaping mouth closed long enough to ask, “What… was that for?”

“I guess we had a bonding moment,” Hunk said, grinning. “I cradled him in my arms.”

From somewhere in the castle, he heard Keith yelling.

**Author's Note:**

> god bless hunk honestly. give this boy more credit.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](http://pippims.tumblr.com) where you can join me in screaming about gay space children.


End file.
